i got a measly sum of $15k hanging about in my pocket, never invested in my life, what should i do with it? bank only seems to offer like 0.5% here in the UK, where could i get a good 5%+ investment with that sum?

if that is too small amount to start bothering with how much do i need to get to before i consider some investments like you guys all do?

Yowsers, this is bad, right?

************************************************** **
Your account is on margin call.
You must send funds to your account immediately.
************************************************** **

Due to the recent movements in the markets you are required to deposit additional cleared funds. To cover the deficit margin amount you must deposit British Pound -5,147,964.81.

Quick Question about intraday price movements.

A few times over the last couple of weeks the UK indices have suddenly tanked around 0.5-1.5% over an hour or two then recovered. E.g. the screens turned red right across the markets after some slightly negative economic news, and then staged a slow recovery.

Obviously, large intraday databases aren't very accessible to newbies, so I wanted to know more.

It strikes me that this is a signature of markets that are easily spooked (and things could rapidly descend on some truly bad news). Furthermore, I'm guessing that this would not be normal in a true bull market. Is this true, or am I just observing normal market behaviour?

this probably won't really answer your question. But, I have invested $5k in stockmarket recently. my feeling is i was getting 1.5% through ING account and if I can do better elsewhere than that seems good to do. So, in your case, if you can find a way to do better than 0.5% then you should. There will be added risk of course, but potentially a bigger return. There isn't a huge reason to be looking for a big score (although it would be nice), but a good solid return (even if that isn't a tremendously large quantity in absolute terms). I think doing better than 0.5% shouldn't be real difficult.

Planning on going back to school very soon and finishing up with a major in Econ.

Thanks for the recommendation, this looks like exactly what I was looking for.

GM..how can it go lower..

Iam thinking about investing in..thoughts?

Apologies if there is something stupid I'm overlooking, but if you could take equal short positions in FAZ and FAS at the same time, with a decently long time horizon, wouldn't this be a nearly guaranteed decent return.

I think this would work for any of the triple levered ETFs, the more volatile the better.

hey all.

i just got added to HSBC's Premier accounts services, which is like a VIP thing for its customers.

they tried to get me to invest in 2 things:

1) Canadian money market account (which i put $50,000 into) http://www.us.hsbc.com/1/2/3/persona...s/money-market
and
2) HSBC Mortgage Fund (canadian)
http://www2.hsbc.ca/HICServlet?cmd_F...ortgage%20Fund

the latter is the one i wasnt sure about. it seemed like it was getting good returns, but ive read to be wary of investing in funds.


what do ya'll think.

http://adamsoptions.blogspot.com/200...ths-later.html

it almost sounds like martingale system. Eventually you'll hit a bad run and you're in trouble.

I cant comment on the mortgage fund,

but I just left RBC's premium money market fund (min 100k) for their canadian bond index fund which seems to have better returns every year with just a little bit more variance. I am guessing HSBC has similarities. MM seems better if you need your money to be liquid within a very very very short time frame (say, a month or two). I guess its balancing higher EV and higher variance, but both are very conservative.

gl gl

1.35% management fees = eww

I've been lingering in this forum for a while, and I've ordered some books that Arturius recommended and I'm trying to cram knowledge. I see some sort of future for myself in trading, but probably a few years in the future, after poker. At this moment I almost know less than nothing about trading.

In the meantime I'd just like to play around and probably lose 5-10k in the process while i figure stuff out, pretty much in exactly the same fashion as I did with poker.

After doing some reading/watching of events over the last 6 months my gut feeling tells me that there is a lot of false optimism in the air and a lot of stocks that I thought were going to do really badly December-May actually did pretty well, but I believe they may have peaked for the year.

So while I'm trying to figure this out I thought I'd post here in case anyones bored and can tell me the answer faster than I can find it while I'm reading stuff.

Basically I want to know what types of stocks I can short, and companies that anyone recommmends for me to do so. In particular I'm thinking about luxury food supermarket companies (like Marks+Spencers in the UK) high end designer clothing companies (Harvey Nichols) and anything else I can think of along these lines that I think is going to do really badly over the next 6 months.
Can I short these kind of stocks?If so where? For how long a time period can I short them? I just shipped 5k to http://www.h-l.co.uk/ but I dont think I can short anything with these guys. Anyway I'm very confused and I have no clue what I'm doing lol. Help appreciated

Why is there a USD/AUD thread that is allowed to evolve, yet when someone wants to start a discussion on USD/CAD, it's immediately locked? Double standard because ArturiusX is Aussie? There are tons of people I'm sure who are interested in discussing the USD/CAD exchange.

A bunch of poker players talking about whether they should cash their roll is not USD/CAD talk.

If someone wants to talk about trading a pair in general they can feel free too, but I'm getting sick of people wanting a crystal ball of some kind when any advice they get is flipping anyway.

The AUD/USD thread had some trading discussion in it but I'm going to lock it soon if no one wants to talk trading. If you want to talk about poker money movements its better off in the general thread since advice should be tailored to your situation and risk appetite. If you want to talk USD/CAD trading, feel free to start one as long as the OP is semi reasonable.

Ok, take a step back. first to short, you need a security. So, if these companies are listed, you may be able to short them. That should be your first step. The next step is establishing a broker account. To short a stock you need a margin account, and the broker needs to have the stock available to short. I found this with a google search:

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answ...tshortsell.asp

Think about what you're trying to do, search for topics on it, do some research, figure out exactly what you want. There are problems with shorting, but I'll leave it up to you to figure it out, all the info is very public and very accessible.

hello all, looking to start getting a better understanding of US economy's financial situation, the stock market, and general investments that I could make use of. I am a college student and I plan on taking courses on this stuff this coming fall but would like to read up on some preliminary info this summer and have an understanding of the three things mentioned so I can capitalize and throw some poker money at this as well. So, where can I delve into this info?

there should be a thread on the frontpage just for you

If I sell a piece of real estate in Australia, but work and pay taxes in the United States, under what circumstances, if any, would I have to pay Australian Capital Gains Tax on the sale?

It is income earned in Australia, so for your income tax you pay capital gains on profits made.

But which country(s) would be wanting to tax me on this?

This is a simple one, so I'll have a crack at it.

When you buy a share, think about what you are buying. Another term for a share is equity, and equity just means ownership. So as a shareholder, you are a (proportionate) owner of the company. Think of the standard accounting equation Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity. LHS is what a company has, RHS is a claim on those assets. When Assets > Liabilites, the shareholder owns the rest. They have a residual claim on the assets.

In addition to the claim on the assets, the shareholder has a vote. Also, the share will (typically) trade for more than the residual value. This is due to to things like brand name, skill of staff etc.

Now, think about what you are buying when you buy a share of a ponzi scheme. That's right, you are buying nothing. There is no underlying business.

A ponzi scheme needs more and more members to keep running. A share needs the underlying company to grow and become more profitable. A ponzi scheme is like a zero sum game, ordinary shares aren't.

Hope that helped.
tl;dr

(bump) this megathread fell off the front page. So to clarify my question

If I sell a piece of real estate in Australia, and I bought it when I was not living in Australia, and have not lived there ever since, and I now work and pay taxes in the United States, under what circumstances, if any, would I have to pay Australian Capital Gains Tax on the sale, and generally which country(s) would be wanting to tax me in what way on this?

Ask both tax agencies or a tax lawyer? Looks like a complicated question.

My barely educated guess is that you might get dinged on both sides BUT you might get to apply for a refund or something from Australia.

Anyone else know the situation with this.